For Yugoslavia, Unity Still Holds Best Hope; Neighborly Support

Published: March 25, 1991

To the Editor:

"On the Edge, in the Lands That Wrote the Book" (The Week in Review, March 3), on Balkanization in the Balkans, couldn't be further off the mark. You state that "nobody outside Yugoslavia is prepared to welcome its separate parts into the European family," but neighboring western and eastern European nations have been giving both Slovenia and Croatia unofficial support.

Countries such as Austria, Germany, Hungary and Czechoslovakia have much to gain by establishment of free and independent democracies in Slovenia and Croatia, with their thriving free-market economies. Slovenia and Croatia, with long historical and cultural ties to these nations, have received vital good will, moral support, favorable news media coverage and other unofficial support from private institutions in those countries.

Indeed, Hungary's large sale of automatic weapons to the government of Croatia last fall helped this struggling republic preserve its hard-won democracy by standing up to the Communist Yugoslav army. Unfortunately, this army, whose officer corps is 70 percent Serbian, is the last functioning federal institution in Yugoslavia, through which Communist-ruled Serbia can extend its heavy grip over the other democratic republics.

Clearly, Yugoslavia, and its main champion, Serbia, are finding themselves increasingly more isolated in the international community because of this Serb-controlled army intimidation, because of Serbian repression of Albanians in Kosovo and because of recent Serbian abuse of the federal banking system. Even the International Monetary Fund recently suspended all negotiations with Yugoslavia on monetary aid until this internal turmoil settles.

And even more clearly, the continued existence of Yugoslavia, as it is constituted today, is not in the best interest of Yugoslavia's neighbors. For that matter, it is not in the best long-term interest of the United States either. When push comes to shove in Yugoslavia soon, those European countries will support the democracies in Slovenia and Croatia. So should we. ANTHONY MARGAN Alexandria, Va., March 3, 1991 The writer is a member of the Croatian Democracy Project.